Wrestling Veteran Content To Show Others The Ropes

Rocky Montana is proud of his past as a nasty, a heel, a bad guy. He lived by the pro wrestler's golden rule: Do unto others before they do unto you.

Kick 'em in the groin, rake their eyes, bite their flesh, punch their noses. For 35 years Montana traveled the world entertaining bloodthirsty crowds with these antics. ''People do it for ego,'' said Montana. ''Once you hear the roar of the crowd you're snake bit.''

For Montana the roar has silenced now, the crowd is gone. No longer does he wrestle as Dr. Blood or as one of the Assassins or Blue Demons. First diabetes tried to throw him out of the ring. Then, a year and a half ago, he lost two toes after stepping on a broken Coke bottle. That dealt the final blow.

At age 51 he was content to spend his retirement lounging on the couch, but his wife, Johnnie, wouldn't let him be just a TV spectator. She suggested he start the Central Florida School of Wrestling, so Montana opened the school with three other men this April and became its president and chief trainer. The note pad on his desk says, ''From the ring of Rocky Montana . . . .''

The school is nothing big. It has about eight students who meet at night in a west Orange County warehouse to learn a repertoire of body slams, hammerlocks, falls, bumps and punches. The students are brawny men from the ranks of landscaping foremen, firefighters, paramedics and law enforcement officers. They hope to make money and wallow in the glory of raucous crowds.

Montana indoctrinates these men in his wrestling philosophy: ''You've got to be three kinds of people in this business -- crazy, dedicated and an egotist.'' And: ''You've got to have it in two places -- in your heart and in your head.''

From outside the ring, Montana teaches wrestling moves with the gruffness of a football coach. After one 200-pounder flew into a body slam and then hit the wooden floor with a dramatic thud, he looked to Montana for approval. ''What do you want, applause?'' Montana barked.

That's how he trains these guys for the business of bruises. Most students weigh about 200 pounds and stand about 6 feet tall; most don't have the size required for stardom in big-time matches. Montana aims to break his boys into the minor-league matches and turn them into ''outlaws'' who wrestle in such Florida cities as Sanford and Tampa.

Pro wrestling, a bizarre combination of sport and theater, has become a knockout on TV these past few years, picking up a cult following along the way. It's the money flashed around by Hulk Hogan, the Iron Sheik and other wrestling wonderhunks that has helped draw aspiring wrestlers to Montana's school, although he cautions that ''to start off with there's hardly any money.''

Money made Montana switch from boxing to wrestling decades ago. ''I was a boxer riding around on my bicycle while my brothers were wrestlers driving around in Cadillacs,'' said Montana. ''I got tired of riding a bicycle.''

The allure of money brought Donald McLain, 30, to Montana's school. Winning is everything and cheating is just another way to win, said the landscaping foreman from Lake Mary. ''The winner eats steak and the loser eats eggs.''

Teaching guys like McLain the moves and the showmanship of wrestling ''is the hardest part, because I want to get in the ring with them and I can't,'' said Montana. ''I train these guys because it's an extension of myself. When I'm looking at them I'm looking at me.''